Know Your Weapons

One interesting aspect of my walk with Jesus is I have learned several spiritual lessons via animals. Here’s one of them, based upon the two times I’ve been attacked by large dogs.

Dog Attack #1

Back when I was 7 years old, my parents and I took a road trip in a 1960 Chevy Corvair sedan from my hometown of El Paso, Texas to Northern California and Oregon.

First, we visited my half-sister and her family in Oakland, California and then, after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, drove up historic US Highway 101 through the redwoods to visit my aunt, Ruth Wahl née Willis, in Port Orford, Oregon, a small town just north of the mouth of the Rogue River.

Port Orford, the town for which the Port Orford Cedar tree species is named, was officially founded in 1856. For decades, it served as a receiving port for mercantile and fishing as well as as a shipping port for the timber industry. The local historical landmark, Battle Rock, was the site of a battle between the first Caucasian settlers and the local Native American tribe in 1851.

Aunt Ruth’s house was on a hillside with a huge picture window overlooking this gorgeous scenic vista of Battle Rock and the Pacific Ocean.

When we finally arrived in Port Orford, we met her at the bank she worked at just before close of business and then convoyed with her to the house. After exiting her car, she headed around to the back of the house, intending to come to the front door from inside, unlock it, and allow us to enter. In my enthusiasm to be there, I chased after her to the rear door, and opened it.

With no warning, her collie watchdog leapt at me out of the darkness and bit me in the face!

I ran around front with blood streaming down my face, screaming in terror and tears. After my parents and Aunt Ruth quickly sorted out what happened, they hauled me off to nearby Gold Beach to see a doctor. The dog’s upper teeth had come within an inch of my right eye and the lower ones hit right at the corner of my mouth — that single inch kept me from wearing a pirate patch over my eye for the rest of my life because I had yet to need glasses. I was treated and released, and like most children, healed quickly — at least my body did.

From that moment onward for the next 11 years, I was absolutely terrified of all large dogs. Since we had a cat at home until I was 16, and only a Yorkshire Terrier for the 2 years after that, I had no positive experiences with large dogs to mitigate my fear through familiarity with my own pet.

Steve, the Attack-Dog Handler

After I graduated from high school in San Leandro, California (we moved there from El Paso during 7th grade), one of my first jobs was as a uniformed rent-a-cop for a security company in Oakland. Guess what every guard they hired had to be able to do proficiently?

Handle an attack-trained police dog!

Talk about being tossed into the deep end of the pool for my first swimming lesson! Not only was I dealing with big dogs in general, but specifically ones trained to bite people on command! But as I learned what the folks at the company who supplied the dogs taught me, we discovered to our mutual surprise I had a knack for it as I quickly overcame my terror. In fact, I got to be so good at it the dog company hired me away from the security company. During this crash-course in attack-dog handling, I learned an extremely valuable bit of information: how to deal with a dog attack and win.

How Emerge Victoriously Over a Dog Attack

The whole process is really rather simple. Here’s how:

1. Don’t run!

Dogs are pack animals whose ancestors and modern-day wild relatives prey upon various other species by chasing them down. Running stimulates this instinct, making the dog bolder and more determined in its attack. It sees you running and doggie-thinks, “Aha! I knew that was a meal!” Another, far more crucial aspect is this: unless your pursuer is a 3-toed sloth, anything with 4 legs which is large enough to damage you can also outrun you. Running also keeps you from effectively coping with the attack because it is impossible to defend yourself while running.

2. Accept that you are going to be bitten.

Unless you have a gun, Mace, or pepper-spray already in your hand when a dog attacks, there is nothing you can do to prevent it, so just accept that fact and flow with it.

3. Remain standing & balanced, facing the dog.

Dogs instinctively go for the throat, but that target is typically out of its reach on an adult, so it will go for whatever else is handy.

The problem is if it attacks your legs — the only target option you give it if you’re running, by the way — you can easily lose your balance and fall, which then puts your throat within range of its teeth.

That would be bad.

So your first goal is to remain on your feet. You do this by facing the dog, standing with your feet braced to absorb his impact. Especially if it’s a large dog or if you’re not very large, you’ll want to be able to step one foot backward and rotate your body as the dog hits to redirect its combat energy around you instead of you trying to absorb it full-on by opposing the attack directly.

4. Feed the dog your arm.

Since you’ve already accepted the idea of being bitten and embraced the need to stay on your feet, feeding the dog your arm gives it the least valuable target which it can damage the least (as opposed to your hand, for example) -AND- with the least possibility of you losing your footing. If you are right-handed, feed it your left arm and step backward with your right foot, rotating to your right. If you are left-handed, do the reverse. From there you can exercise a certain amount of control over the dog because it’s completely focussed on biting your arm rather than looking for a better target.

5. Counter-attack — Preferably With a Weapon!

• If you are unarmed, you might be tempted to kick a male dog in the genitals just like you can a male human attacker. The problem with this is you would be taking a foot off the ground while an angry dog is worrying your arm, so you can easily to lose your footing and fall during such an attempt (and who has time to determine a dog’s gender in the heat of battle? 😁)

  A much better option when unarmed is to make a fist with your free hand and “knock” (just like you would knock on a door with your knuckles) on the top of the dog’s snout as hard as you can.

  Why?

  All of a dog’s facial nerves end in its snout and a blow there will momentarily stun it — the dog cannot help but release its grip and turn its head to one side. If you have something hard in your hand, such as a stick (police batons or jo sticks rock for this application), a hammer, wrench or other tool, a full water bottle, or even your cell phone, using that is even better. Just hit the dog there and keep smacking the crap out of him anywhere you can reach until he breaks off the attack.



• If you are carrying Mace or pepper-spray in your pocket or on your belt, now’s the time to grab it and spray it into the dog’s nose and eyes.
• If you have your car keys in your hand, attack the dog’s eyes with your keys, just like you can do with a human attacker.
• If you have a sheath knife or a folding knife which can be drawn and opened with one hand, acquire your blade and repeatedly stab the dog’s eyes and/or throat until it either gives up or dies, whichever comes first.
• In the unlikely event that you have an axe or a comparable edged weapon, commence chopping on the dog with it.
• If you have a stun-gun, shock the dog anywhere you can reach.
• If you have a pistol, draw it and shoot the dog in the head. If there are bystanders present, try to aim so you will not fire into them in case you miss or the bullet over-penetrates. It’s also good to miss your arm during that process.

Immediately Call 911 to Receive Professional Medical Attention

Besides the obvious danger of you possibly bleeding to death if your ulnar and/or radial arteries are punctured, there are other factors to consider, such as nerve and tendon damage which could cripple your arm.

If the dog’s owner is known to you, the authorities can quickly ascertain if the dog has received its rabies vaccinations. If the dog died and is unknown to you and any bystanders, they can test it for rabies. If it is unknown and cannot be tested because it survived, ran off, and they cannot track it down, you will have to undergo rabies shots. While that’s painful, it is far more preferable to rabies itself, an incurably lethal disease once it takes hold in your body.

Unless your tetanus vaccination is current, you will also need another rather painful shot to prevent that disease. While tetanus is non-fatal, it makes you so miserable you’d wish it was, so the shot itself is the lesser of 2 evils.

Dog slobber contains some very nasty bugs, so the doc might give you some kind of antibiotic to prevent infection, especially if the dog is feral or a coyote. This is can administered by immediate injection, orally over some period of time after the attack, or both.

Don’t dismissively blow this off as unnecessary! I hate needles and get woozy whenever I’m punctured in any portion of my anatomy. Under such circumstances, I wouldn’t think twice about receiving any or all of those shots. They can wake me up afterwards! 😎

Dog Attack #2

Fast forward 7 years to the fall of 1979. I was back living in El Paso after my honorable discharge from the US Army 4 years prior. I was taking a walk along Rio Grande Avenue near Lee Street in central El Paso one evening. I resided elsewhere in town, but was in the area because my girlfriend-soon-to-be-wife lived nearby. I was wearing a navy-blue quilted-nylon polyfill jacket with my hands in its pockets. Because this wasn’t — and still isn’t — a particularly safe neighborhood, I also had a razor-sharp Buck^® folding hunting knife in my right hand in the jacket pocket.

As I was walking along the sidewalk, praying and minding my own business, a good-sized German Shepherd dog took umbrage at my presence on his turf and launched himself at me out of the darkness from his master’s front porch. This dog was not barking to warn me off, but was growling while in a flat-out run with his belly to the ground — he was determined to have a piece of me!

Without conscious thought, I immediately drew my knife, opened it, crouched in a balanced stance, and yelled, “HAH!!!” at the dog. Even though I knew he was going to bite me, I was determined that he was going to die for his efforts. My instinctive decision was that I would let him bite my arm and I was going to cut his throat.

To my complete astonishment, the dog did a complete U-turn and ran back to the porch! This whole incident took place within 20 feet and a couple of seconds!

As you can see, this was an entirely different outcome from the first attack. In the first, I was blindsided and unable to defend myself. In the second case, I not only defended myself successfully, I didn’t even get bitten (Thank You, Jesus!).

The Spiritual Application

Some of you are wondering by now, asking yourselves, “Well, what’s the spiritual significance of all this?” A couple of Scripture verses come to mind here:

Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge…
Isaiah 5:13a

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…
Hosea 4:6a

In both verses, the Hebrew word for “knowledge” is da’ath:

da’ath

knowledge, perception, skill, discernment, understanding, wisdom

So God is saying that His people are destroyed or led into captivity because they lack knowledge, perception, skill, discernment, understanding, and wisdom.

“Knowledge of what?” we may ask.

Well, the context of the verse in Isaiah talks about God’s people not regarding, paying attention to, or perceiving His works and purposes in the earth. The context of the verse in Hosea is a mass turning away from God to idols.

In both cases, the people of God were living their lives with total disregard for their Creator.

And modern-day believers tend to fall into the same kinds of traps, living secular — or even worse, religious — existences in ignorance of God’s desire to be vitally involved with their daily lives. Now many would nod their heads in agreement, self-righteously affirming that sin is indeed a problem, but that is only one facet of this issue. The even greater tragedy is that, whether through inaccurate or ineffective revelation of God or a total lack of knowledge about the things of God, they are totally at the nonexistent mercy of Satan, a supernatural psychopath bent on their complete destruction.

So rather than responding to an attack with the expertise and confidence that come from good training (education + practice + time) in a soldier, such believers either blame the attack on God (“He wants to make me humble” or “He wants me to suffer so I can bring glory to Him”, or “He wants to teach me patience,” or other pious-sounding religious drivel) or they forget that we are not warring with flesh and blood (see Ephesians 6:12) then blame other humans and sink into bitterness. Either way, rather than striking back back at their true enemy with skill and elán, they throw down their weapons and refuse to fight, allowing the enemy to roll over them and/or their loved ones like a tsunami.

When that second dog attacked me, I responded without thinking in accordance with the training I had received. Because I reacted correctly and with confidence in both my weapon and my knowledge of how to wield it in such a circumstance, the attacker was driven off — if it hadn’t, the dog would have died there on the spot. Any way you cut it (pardon the pun 😀), I won the fight!

This is article is not lofty theory, but practical, where-the-rubber-meets-the-road applied theology that I have experienced in my own life and walk with God. When I heard my cancer diagnosis, it never occurred to me to be scared. It was like I was surrounded by this cocoon of grace and all the years of receiving training in — as well as teaching — the Word of God concerning divine healing immediately kicked in. By God’s grace, I was already fully equipped and trained to face that attack when it came and the end result is that I am now cancer-free.

Conclusion

It was said of the Roman Army:

Their drills were like bloodless battles and their battles like bloody drills Flavius Josephus, 1st century AD Jewish historian

Today’s military professionals follow the same maxim. The harder and better you train in peacetime, the more likely your personal survival as well as victory over your country’s enemies.

This is a fundamental truism for every aspect of life.

We get to the same place spiritually by knowing God on a continuously, progressively greater level. As we know Him more closely and intimately, our faith in His Word grows and our skill in handling our weapons and armor increases. And when that scurvy dog Satan tries to attack us, we respond with “HAH!” and cut him to ribbons with the Sword of the Spirit.

The Church is supposed to be populated with victors, not victims! We are compassionate to our brothers and sisters who have fallen in the enemy’s attacks while we remain resolute and steadfast against the enemy himself (By the way, never get those two confused!).

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
1 Corinthians 15:57-58

Thanks for reading!